These Texans Started a Music Festival for Charity in Mexico

Magic Town Music festival planners hash out festival details. The 2016 festival dates are March 12-13 in San Miguel, Mexico.

Image via Facebook/Magic Town Music

Originally published on October 13, 2015 4:59 pm

From Texas Standard: During her first couple of years in San Miguel de Allende, a colonial city in Central Mexico, Dallas native Carrie Cameron spent most of her time creating art. But then, she thought there had to be more to retirement than just making beautiful things.

Listen

Listening...

/

"I have such a wonderful, blessed life and I just feel like it's my duty to give it back," she says.

The question was how. One day, Cameron talked to her friend, singer Maylee Thomas, and the two decided to put together a music festival for a cause.

"When I researched who to give the money to in San Miguel, I wanted to make sure it was someone who didn't have a big overhead," Cameron says. "That the money would be paying for all that."

She says she learned about a non-profit called Casa de los Angeles – the Home of Angels, a daycare for single mothers in poverty. Casa de los Angeles is mostly run by volunteers – even this promotional video was shot by a volunteer.

Through her research, Cameron was amazed to see how much help was provided to about 100 single moms. It touched her because there was a time when she too was a single mother.

"I really, really struggled," Cameron says. "I was working three jobs, I was cleaning houses, I was working in a courthouse, my mom had a convenience store and I had two boys to raise. So that was really difficult for me. And then, I got married again and had a lot of money."

That's when she decided that no matter what, she wanted to spend her life giving back. She wanted to do it the right way.

As a fairly well-to-do artist in Dallas she was always invited to charitable events. Two things often bothered her.

One: those charities where most of the proceeds — say 90 percent — went to expenses, and less to those in need. Two: charity concerts where working musicians were not paid but were expected to cover their own expenses.

"What we do is we bring the musicians down – we pay for their flights, all the housing is donated from people in town and then, we give them all some spending money," Cameron says.

Last year, Cameron flew in 50 musicians from Dallas, Austin, Nashville and L.A. She says she feels it's a fair deal for all – she, her partner and other retirees put the event together for free.

Musicians and venues get paid. All that takes about 75 percent of the money and then Casa de los Angeles gets the other 25 percent. This year the Magic Town Music Festival raised $10,000 for the daycare center and there are plans for a third festival in the Spring.

There’s a side benefit too, Cameron says: the feeling that, even in retirement, there’s lots of rewarding work yet to be done.

This year, Texas public schools won’t measure instructional time by days, but they’ll do it by minutes. In the past, Texas public schools years were required to be provide 180 days of instruction. Now, a school year must provide a minimum of 75,600 minutes.